[Jeremy]

A bit of bad news.

The herd did not arrive prior to Sunday as was anticipated, so the shipping party was postponed. 🙁 We plan to send the geocoins out as early in the week as possible (assuming we get them). If send them this Monday or Tuesday, I’m sure all Wisconsin folks will get theirs before Christmas, but I’m worried about our ability to get all the coins to their destinations across the country in time…

[Jeremy]

@cheezehead wrote:

“OH WHERE OR WHERE CAN MY LITTLE COW BE??????” 😥 😥 😥 🙁 🙁

Have they been shipped yet? 😕

Almost all the WGA Board members are going to be present a little party this Sunday morning. I hear a herd of 500 head of cattle may also show up. Should be fun trying to corral all the little cows and drive them to their destinations.

Head ’em up… move ’em out! 😀

(If you can’t read between lines in my gibberish above, the coins will be shipped out Sunday, so I would imagine people in Wisconsin will have them by Wednesday. Coins going across the country first class may a week or more to get to their destination.)

[Jeremy]

Hallelujah, it’s solved. This was a frustrating but still somewhat fun puzzle. Sadly, I was so very close with the third set of coordinates I put into Geochecker many days ago. I then went off on many tangents and spent hours trying things (probably 10+ hours) that just didn’t pan out, as evidenced by my list of 27 failed coordinates.

Now, do I torture myself with the “other” SSSS puzzle? ❓ 😀

[Jeremy]

Dear Santagasu,

I only want one thing for Christmas this year. My mind back. It has been preoccupied with solving a certain sinister, scary, sneaky and strenuous (SSSS) puzzle cache as of late. I can’t concentrate on anything without drifting off into a weird fantasy land land of keys and numbers and mathematical formulas. When I try to sleep I’m haunted by nightmares of getting INCORRECT in Geochecker over and over and over again.

I’ve been a good boy this year and must be on the nice list. I kept my room clean and ate most of my vegetables. I didn’t get into any fights and listened to my mom.

Your favorite little geocacher,

– Jeremy V.
Milwaukee, WI

(P.S. I’ll have milk and cookies out for you on the kitchen table. You can leave the solution to the puzzle there. Tell the reindeer to be careful not to damage any shingles on my new roof.)

(P.P.S. If you have time, please also help my girlfriend out. ;))

[Jeremy]

Don’t worry about any LCG rule changes impacting the “system”. Just about anything is technically possible and adjusting the scoring algorithm is a breeze.

I like the idea of awarding progressively more points for finding “lonelier” caches (multipliers of 1.25, 1.5, etc.)… something to give extra incentive to folks to attempt caches that have been not found for a long time.

While not awarding points to subsequent lonely cache finders makes some logical sense, I agree with Dave that this would make the game even more competitive and actually decrease participation. Plus you might arrive at a lonely cache just minutes after someone else and now suddenly you get 0 or reduced points… that doesn’t seem fair.

As far as prizes go, the Board has discussed having the WGA supply / buy prizes for the game. Most of the discussion was centered more on participation type prizes. Like you’d get something (a pin, coin, patch, etc.) for submitting a certain number of lonely cache reports in a year. Or instead of awarding a prize to the winner each month, have a drawing where the number of drawing entries is based on the number of points earned. More people may participate if there is a chance they can get something… based on previous activity, most people know they will never win, so maybe this is why some don’t even bother to play.

Since we are on these two month cycles, I also think it makes sense to have bimonthly instead of monthly winners. Or even just announce winners at the end of the year and have some bigger prizes?

[Jeremy]

I’m getting dangerously close to hitting the delete button on this entire topic… don’t make me do it guys! 😀

[Jeremy]

@Buttoneers2 wrote:

Will we still get the coins even if you don’t sell a certain minimum of pre-orders?

Don’t worry, you will get your coins. They have already been ordered from the manufacturer and baring any major problems will be shipped in mid-December.

We would have ordered 500 coins regardless of the quantity we sold during the pre-sale. We were close to our 500 coin target with pre-sale orders when we placed the order with the manufacturer, and now all have been spoken for (but not quite all paid for).

[Jeremy]

Jeremy’s wish list:

– Adopt some sort of formal registration system. Last year people could sign up on gc.com or separate event website. Either way they signed up it was difficult to estimate attendance (it was being done manually in a spreadsheet) and there was no way for attendees to change or cancel their registration. There was also no easy way to do a mass email of event information to participants.

– Convince the powers that be at geocaching.com to list the event as a mega event. The attendance was pretty close to the 500 required last year, so hopefully this is an easy sell.

– Combine another activity with the flash mob event. Attendance was kind of low at the flash mob, probably because people were out caching, they went home, or were too tired. If they had more incentive to come back Sunday, I think many would.

– Include more local geocachers in the cache hiding. All the caches were great last year, but expecting an individual to hide 20 high quality permanent caches (and then maintain them after the event) is asking too much.

– Several people already suggested night caches, and I like that idea. I don’t know if it would make sense to do these on Friday night to give people chomping at the bit something to do or Saturday night following the big day of caching (some may be cached out at that point).

– Saturday morning start time should be a (little) later. 😀

[Jeremy]

@notmuch wrote:

@Team Deejay wrote:

I’d like to see a download file made available on the event page or WGA site at around 10PM on Friday before the event. This would ease the burden on those helping with the downloads

I second this thought. With the wide variety of gpsr’s out there, we ran into some really “old” ones and fancy-smanchy new ones that, frankly, I had no idea how to download to. This would ease the burden of….”Hey Jeremy, come help here,” and would ease the frustration of cachers who were annoyed when the volunteer downloaders didn’t “know” every nuance or how to operate their unit.

I’m all for anything that reduces the crunch and madness at the download area… I don’t know if my nerves can take another big event like this. 😉 We asked if a GPX file could be posted in advance last year, and the Chamber folks were adamant that this information not be released early. Hopefully they are more open to doing it this year.

It was (and probably still is) nearly impossible for them to get the file up on their event website at a specified time, and putting it on the WGA site could be construed as showing favoritism. It would probably be easiest if we just email it out to registered participants the night before (like a Pocket Query). Of course, a few folks may have theirs caught in a spam filter or otherwise lost in cyberspace…

@SammyClaws wrote:

Also I agree, it would be nice to have something going on between the time you turn in your card and the drawings. We headed back to our room and watched TV. Perhaps some local vendors could set up some stands that we could purchase food at.

There was a group selling soda, drinks, and snacks in the park at the end of the event (as well as a group selling coffee and hot chocolate in the morning). I believe they could have also sold brats, hot dogs, and burgers if they were asked to, but the Chamber wasn’t sure there would be enough interest.

While Tami’s karaoke idea would give people something to do before the drawing, I think that people were happy NOT having things to do for this hour. They spent the time relaxing, socializing with old and new friends… and there was also the treasure chest to keep the kids occupied.

If anything, something like Geocacher Bingo could be introduced to facilitate more socializing during this time period. I think having loud karaoke music playing would keep people from talking to each other, and if the singers suck (and you know they will :)), I don’t even want to be within earshot of the park. Karaoke would make more sense later on Friday night after people enjoy the drink specials at Muggles. 😀

[Jeremy]

Some duplicate and check orders were recently canceled, so the WGA Store has been “restocked” with 20 more coins. If you attempted to purchase coins in the last day or so but were told that we didn’t have enough stock when you tried to check out, now you should be able to get your order placed.

[Jeremy]

@Vegas Gamblers wrote:

@Jeremy wrote:

Woodman’s in Oak Creek, $1.99 / gallon

The Woodmans price is cash only.

Thanks! They failed to mention that in the article… I’m glad I didn’t make a detour there for the cheaper gas only to find that out.

[Jeremy]

The Milwaukee Journal had an article about the first sub-$2.00 gas seen here in quite some time:

http://www.jsonline.com/newswatch/34337359.html

Woodman’s in Oak Creek, $1.99 / gallon

It’s $2.05 or below in many places here on the south side of the Milwaukee metro area. With oil prices falling again today, prices below $2 could be everywhere by Thanksgiving…

[Jeremy]

The late order is no problem emmy.

In fact, we are currently a little short of selling our target of 500 coins. So we are going to order 500 coins with the manufacturer, but keep the store open a little longer to try to meet our goal.

Right now, there are 40 coins “in stock” in the WGA Store… when these are gone you will not be able to buy any more Wisconsin cow coins in 2008. If some check orders are canceled there may be a few coins for sale at WGA events in 2009, but we can’t guarantee this.

[Jeremy]

Bump.

Today is the last day folks… get your geocoin order in by midnight. Also, if you paid by check, please get it sent to Brian or we’ll have to cancel your order.

[Jeremy]

@sandlanders wrote:

Don’t know about caches, but we drove some of the Natchez Trace in Mississippi many years ago, and also toured the Civil War battlefield at Shiloh. These were in late March, and while warmer than Wisconsin, the dogwood buds were still curled up tight.

I’ll second the Natchez Trace suggestion, and I think it is a pretty good caching destination. I just completed riding the entire Trace from Nashville to Natchez in October. There is a good mix of caches along the way… many historical virtuals, quite a few Earthcaches, and some nice hikes. You could spend a day or two in Cacheville seeing the sites and padding your numbers, then head south.

The Arkansas Ozarks were also nice (contact Jeff of Hotdogs for recommendations… unfortunately I bypassed all but one of the cool caches he pointed out because I just didn’t have the time). But the best day of my trip was riding the Talimena Scenic Byway on the AR / OK border. There is a whole series of Talimena Treasures caches that will keep you busy a whole day or two. Given the elevation of these “mountains” and the fact that the byway is not maintained for winter driving, I’m not sure if this would be a good March destination though.

[Author]

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